Review - Clinton Street Brewing

Let's start with the positives first. Over the weekend, I enjoyed a tasty porter at the ultra-wee, DIY Clinton Street Theater, brewed up by the folks at the adjacent Clinton Street Brewery. It was smooth and creamy, with nary an off flavor (common in DIY breweries), though perhaps a touch too much black malt. I'd rate it in the good to excellent continuum. And, good beer equals good brewery, yeah?

That generally fool-proof equation ran aground on the shoals of incredibly poor service at the Clinton Street. Our experience started when we arrived at a little after five-thirty on a Saturday, figuring we'd catch a beer and maybe some food before the 7 pm showing of Children of Men. It was closed, though we noticed that a guy was trying--and failing--to unlock the front door. We decided to take a stroll around the neighborhood and see if he'd gotten things fired up, but at ten to six, no luck (we was still standing in front of the place, looking forlorn). We departed for food elsewhere.

When we returned at 6:35, the pub was open and there were about a dozen people in line. Sally went in to grab a seat and I went to grab a couple beers. They had one guy manning the taps and between the time it took him to go into the "kitchen" and microwave pizzas and verrrrrry sllllloooowwwly pull pints, it was literally twenty minutes before I got my beer. Singular. It turns out they can only serve one beer per ID-bearing person, by decree of the OLCC. (This is probably because of the hinky set-up, where the pub and theater are not one--so you don't get carded walking into the establishment, as you do at the Mission. But of course, you lose a decent seat if everyone in your party wants a beer. Pick your poison.) By the time I was headed into the theater, there were thirty people in a line that snaked through the pub--god knows when they got their beer.

The theater is as it has always been, a dingy and decaying, unheated space with a crappy projector and poor audio. I lived at 19th and Clinton in the late 80s, and although the neighborhood has changed remarkably, there's the theater, as decrepit as always.

So the beer's fine. If you want to endure the experience of actually getting a pint, you'll probably enjoy it. But in a town like Portland, where good beer and theater-pubs are a dime a dozen, you don't have to endure an experience like this to get a good beer. The beer's not that good.

I went with a friend to "Check" out the place...Apparently, the owner and bartender had friends in there hanging out. Not only did they fill the bar, but croweded the space to the point where the bartender couldn't see anybody else. I asked politely if someone could tell the bartender we wanted to order a beer. No response. I walked over to the bar walkway, so the abrtender could see us, he looked at us 3 times, but never took our order. Finally, we asked, "Can we order a beer?" The guy says, "Do you know what you want?" I said,"Anything will do at this point, we're parched from the wait...." ;-}

WHen we got our house beers they were both thin, steelly tasting and rather off and uninspiring. That was my first and last trip to CLinton...

I know the guys running the place - you'll be glad to hear that there's a new brewer making some pretty top notch beer and new staff behind the bar. They had their Rye Pale at the brewer's dinner, and it was great! It's still a bar service place, so you have to put your order in at the bar, they won't come out to the table.